


They Long to Be

by runsinthefamily



Series: Purgatory [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Forgiveness, Purgatory, lying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:11:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <img/><p>http://www.behance.net/unitxt</p>
    </blockquote>





	They Long to Be

**Author's Note:**

> http://www.behance.net/unitxt

For a space, Dean wandered. There was nothing but white, and the sensation of movement. When it occurred to him to fear, he screamed. He could hear himself, dull and muffled, as though he were facefirst in a pillow. Cas, he screamed. Cas.

I am here.

Where?

Be calm. I am with you.

The movement was rhythmic. A slow swaying. Dean looked down and saw his legs, his feet. He was walking. He had hands, which he brought up to his face. The whiteness frayed a little, showed him white sand that gave beneath him, spilled over the toes of his boots as his feet sank in. The sand had small dunes, ripples. Stones. He looked to the right and saw a massive beam of what looked like black iron running along the ground beside him.

Nothing looked quite … believable. And the white blurred and blotted anything further away than about thirty feet. 

_**“You are well. Your mind needed time to adjust.”** _

He looked to the left and saw Cas. 

He still had Jimmy’s face, mostly. It had grown hard and stiff. Simplified, like a marble statue. The eyes were the same, blue and intense and focused on Dean. The rest of him, though …

Castiel was composed of shifting plates of metal, folding confusingly in on themselves and each other with hushed, silken whispers. They formed an irregular tower about twenty feet tall that hovered just off the ground. He looked like a particularly expensive piece of computer graphic wizardry. He looked painfully real, in a way that even Dean’s own body did not.

“Dude,” said Dean, a little freaked out by how not freaked out he was. “Not that this isn’t cool, but I thought you said Chrysler building. Bit short, aren’t you?”

_**“This is not my true form**_ ,” said Castiel. The lips of his mask/face/thing didn’t move, and the human tones inside the angelic were nearly gone. 

“What is it, then?” asked Dean. 

_**“I can’t hold my vessel together in this place.**_ ” He sounded irritated. _**“When I tried to manifest as myself, this happened**_.”

“Shit. Are you okay?” Dean stopped dead and reached out a hand to where Cas’ immobile face hung in front of the shifting metallic bits. 

_**“I am fine,**_ ” said Cas. “ _ **This is not painful. Simply inconvenient.**_ ”

“Okay,” said Dean. “Inconvenient. Right.” A thought struck him. “Oh, crap, where’s your wings? Where’s Lightbulb?”

_**“Inside**_ ,” said Cas. The metal burst open like a slow-motion explosion, all the plates tumbling and arching through the air, and three pairs of wings, glorious as the dawn, unfolded from the spitting, roaring fire that was revealed in his center. 

“Holy fuck,” said Dean.

Lightbulb popped out as well, with a joyous little ‘sproing’ noise, and bounced off the sand at Dean’s feet, the same golden-white tennis ball of light he’d been before. Dean caught him reflexively.

Cas buttoned up in an eyeblink, everything collapsing back together tidily. “ _ **You carry h - it, for a while**_ ,” he said. “ _ **It was getting restless**_.”

“Okay, but -” Dean put Lightbulb up on his shoulder, ” - carry him where? Do you know where we’re going? I was sort of out of it, there. For a while.”

“ _ **We’re following a path**_.” Cas’ maskface turned toward the iron beam.

“Okay,” said Dean, taking a breath. “Follow the Black Iron Road, got it. I guess that makes you the Tinman. But I’m telling you right now, I’m not being Dorothy.”

“ _ **Wizard of Oz**_ ,” said Cas. “ _ **A fitting metaphor**_.”

“When did you ever see,” said Dean, and then stopped in sudden realization. “Cas, how are we gonna hug?” Cas looked at him and Dean flushed red as fire. “I mean, fuck, I mean, with the Grace thing you do, to keep me ticking.”

Cas was silent for a long moment, the whisper-rustle of his plates the only noise other than the faint scrunch of sand as Dean shifted his feet.

“ _ **An embrace is not entirely needed**_ ,” Cas said finally. 

“What does that mean?” Dean demanded.

“ _ **I can envelop you in my Grace without the need for physical contact**_ ,” Cas said. 

“Wait,” said Dean. “Wait, no, the fuck you say. What happened to _tactile reassurance_? _To bodily communion_? Is this a Purgatory level thing?”

Cas hesitated, and it was so beyond weird that Dean could read him like this, could tell by the way his plates changed their pattern of movement that Cas was nervous, and embarrassed, even a bit shamed. “ _ **No**_ ,” he said. “ _ **Since the false gate**_.”

“What the fuck,” Dean said, taken aback. “Jesus, Cas.” 

Lightbulb made a distressed vibration against Dean’s neck. Cas’ plates slowed and his mask drooped a little, angling away from Dean.

Dean opened his mouth to say something about lying, something about trust and sharing and why and, and … _Exactly how pissed are you, actually_? asked a voice in his head that sounded just like Sam. 

“ _ **I’m sorry**_ ,” said Cas. “ _ **Touching did make it easier to -**_ “

“Whatever,” said Dean, spreading his hands. “Whatever, no big, just, you know.” He licked his lips, glanced away. “If you want a hug, man, just ask for it.” He swiveled on his heel and strode away, down the side of the beam, kicking up sand.

“ _ **Thank you, Dean.**_ ”

He looked sidelong at the collection of flying sentient metal plates and shook his head. This was his life. Seriously. “You’re welcome.”


End file.
